The joker is also the knave, never forget

We are such a stolid, serious crew in this country. Here it is, April 1st and I am yet to see any sort of April Fool joke imposed on the gullible. I read the paper first thing this morning, and there were no gags, there was no pseudo-serious leg-pulling. It's sad to let such a day as this go to waste, but I guess we have more serious matters to tend to, such as those big national and international jokes, otherwise known as politicians.

I believe that the British are the most inspired April Fool jokers of all time. When I lived in the UK years ago I was awe-struck by how seriously the matter of moving an unsuspecting and gullible populace into the realms of 'sapdom' was taken.

Notably the most inspired public hoax was one perpetrated by the BBC a number of years ago, in which television viewers were invited to ponder a 'documentary' dealing with the annual spaghetti harvest in Switzerland. Shown were lovely bits of film footage showing nice ripe strands of pasta being plucked from the branches of the spaghetti trees that only grew in that Alpine nation.

One that was foisted on the public when I was there was an advisory from Westminster noting that certain towns and villages, chosen at random, would be shifting from driving on the left to driving on the right. This was to accommodate the fact that the UK was now part of the European community, and the scheme had been mounted as a means of slowly acclimatizing the British driver to European modes. It was not indicated at the time exactly which towns and villages would be shifting to right, so the public was advised to check with local authorities before they set out the next day.

There have been many more such fine bits of fraud perpetrated on an unsuspecting public, and if you are interested, you might check out. http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/. It's fun.

As I say, though, I was distressed by the fact that nothing of such a 'challenging' nature was imposed on the readership of my morning paper today. At the old Free Press in this community, we never let an April 1 go by without attempting to pull the collective leg of that same community if the first happened to fall on a publication day. Our pseudo-story was always given front page play, sometimes with photographs, and always with a very serious tone.

Favorites through the years (many of which I, ahem, wrote), included: The major freeway interchange through prime real estate and forest on Comox Hill to connect with the Inland Highway; the draining and diking of Comox Bay so that the reclaimed land could be turned into an industrial park dominated by a steel mill; and finally, the tapping of the Comox Glacier's ice to feed the bottled water industry.

Of course, to make such a saga work, it is essential that the tone be deadly serious, and that the tale looks entirely like a conventional news story. One particular story, the draining of Comox Bay, was taken very seriously by a go-getting new reporter who wasn't aware of the gag. He was so distressed by what he read that he called up our MLA in order to get comment. Needless to say, he was mortified to find out that the tale was a hoax. Later we were happy about that, because the guy turned out to be a jerk.

At the end of the story, however, we would usually put a disclaimer that would read something like: "Remember the date on which you read this story." It was amazing how many people, however, would miss that final comment. To which, I would say, more fool them.